Rachel is growing up on us and is now crawling all over the place. She has tried to befriend Nimbus (if you call "chasing" him all over the house befriending) and here's a cordial pic of them...but Nimbus was not so cordial when he "attacked" Rachel last week. He got her with each paw on the sides of her face and then bit her on the head! Poor girl! The worst part is that Adam and I were both within 3 feet of both of them (as we never leave her unattended with Nimbus for this reason). Nimbus was just walking by and Rachel must have grabbed at him or something as we were talking. It only took a split second for this to happen and of course we heard screaming. All in all, it could have been much worse since Nimbus has really sharp claws. I almost think he was trying to "play" with her in his own way. Her scratches were not bad considering and were almost gone the next day. Needless to say, we're much more cautious now. I hope they can be friends one day soon:o)

Good thing we had our gate at the top of the stairs completely shut. I went downstairs to check on some laundry. Little did I know I had a follower who was very curious as to where I was going. I heard a thump, but no crying. She had simply crawled down onto the step before the baby gate and was sitting there smiling when I ran up to check on her.

This past weekend was filled with fun Christmas parties! Adam's work Christmas party was at the Opryland Hotel on Saturday night and the Upper Room Christmas party was Sunday night. Nana came up to watch Rachel so we could go to the party on Saturday night. Adam's company generously pays for everyone to stay overnight each year at whichever hotel the party is at. We enjoyed getting away although we were missing Rachel by the time we got home. It was the longest we'd been away from her (about 24 hours!) I think the "silent night" was our favorite part. Rachel is still having some issues with sleeping through the night. We're working on it, but I start most days completely exhausted. It was nice to sleep in until almost 9AM on Sunday morning after a full night's rest. We had to miss church and Sunday School, but it was a much needed time of rest and togetherness for us.

Here we are after the Christmas party...

Us and Big Al at the Upper Room Christmas party...and yes, I have on the same sweater, but I washed it in between. I needed something festive to wear so I bought this sweater at JCP on Friday night to have for both parties:o)

To end up our Thanksgiving holiday, we always go to Aunt Bren's house and decorate her Christmas tree. This has been a tradition for as long as I can remember. Aunt Bren doesn't have any kids, but in reality, we're all just like her kids. She'd do anything for us...always has and always will I'm sure:o) She makes her signature spaghetti and then we're off to start the decorating...

Someone (who shall remain nameless) thought it would be a great idea to get a picture of all the great grandkids to give to Great Pa for Christmas...what were they thinking! We had an 8 month old, a 14 month old, a 2 year old, and a 5 1/2 year old...do you think they all looked at the camera and smiled all at the same time?!?!? Of course not! Maybe Dana got one good pic amid all the chaos! This is the best one we got and it's not so great!

Laura laying on Duke...she was really sleepy...

Nana and the girls...

A McD family pic...

Nana and all the kiddos...

...and then, the chaos began...glad we got one good pic before they all started going their own ways:o)

Rachel was all pooped out after the weekend of festivities. Here she is sleeping on Adam at Nana's. We went back to her house to watch Cade & Laura after decorating the tree at Bren's. Mom had Christmas play practice at church and Donnie & Christy were in Chicago. We didn't figure she'd get much Christmas play practiced with those two running around...so we volunteered to watch them. Wow! Watching three kids under the age of 2 1/2 is a hard day's work!...but we loved every minute of it!

Cade showing Rachel the ropes of drivin'...

Rachel asleep in the car when we got home. Finally, one holiday down, one more plus New Year's to go!

Thanksgiving was alot of fun this year and very tasty indeed! It was much more crazy with Rachel and trying to work around her schedule for eating/napping and all of our visits with family, but we made it. We started Thanksgiving morning at Great Pa's and had a huge, delicious lunch. Then, it was off to Pa's for dinner. We had Honey Baked Ham with him and it was equally yummy! Last, we ate with Adam's parents on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, then visited with Mama Elaine & Papa Charles on our way back up to Cookeville on Sunday since they didn't come down for Thanksgiving dinner.

Cade & Kassidy at Great Pa's...

Nana & Rachel...

Christy and Laura...

All the grandkids and great grandkids with Granny...I think Kayla is the only one who got the memo to look at Adam...as always, at least 3 cameras were going at one time, so you just try to look somewhere in the vicinity of all the flashes:o)

Rachel playing at Pa's on Thanksgiving night...

Laura -in all her cuteness and undeniable fashion...

Rachel just hangin' out as it got closer to bedtime...

Pa & Laura...

Rachel and Mimi...

...with her Dada...

Rachel got really hot later in the night at Mimi and Papa's, so we just took off her sweater. Then we noticed she matched Uncle Nate who also got hot and shed his shirt...had to get this cute pic on camera!

It's been a while since we posted any updates because we have been extremely busy with the Thanksgiving Holiday and Christmas shopping every minute that we can find. I'm posting quite a few pics today to catch us up to the present:o)

Rachel and I spent the day with Ma a few weeks ago. We raked leaves in her front yard for what seemed like forever, bagging up 6 huge bags of leaves. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning. There are probably at least 10 more bags of leaves that need to be raked...but at least it was a start! Adam's cousins raked quite a bit over the Thanksgiving break, so there's only a little more to go until Ma's yard is lookin' good! Ma sat in a chair in the front yard while Rachel played in her Exersaucer and I worked on the raking. The question of the day from Ma was whether or not it was too cold for Rachel to be outside:o) I think I answered it about 100 times. Gotta love Ma!

Rachel and Ma before we started raking...

Taking after her Dada...here's Rachel tearing it up on her new guitar from Ms. Stephanie...an early Christmas present. Thanks Ms. Stephanie! I love my new guitar!

Dana and Kassidy came to visit us one Saturday and we took a trip to the zoo. Here are the girls in front of the giraffes!

...and Kassidy on the Carousal...

Pa also came to visit one day....Rachel loves it when her grandparents visit. It means undivided attention all day long!

This has been a wonderful week! The weather has been gorgeous and we visited with lots of friends and family.

We got to go to lunch and shopping with Nana, Aunt Brenda, & Aunt Phyllis on Wednesday due to them being off work for Veterans Day. So, that was lots of fun! We ate at one of my favorites - Red Lobster - and I actually got to shop a little while they strolled Rachel around. She likes to keep moving, so stopping to look at something for longer than 5 seconds is out of the question which can make shopping a bit difficult! She got some new PJ's from Aunt Bren and & Phyllis since all of hers were almost too small...pics further down.

Rachel concentrating on crawling...if I concentrate really hard, I can maybe make it to the kitchen...

I did it!! Yeah, I'm getting good!...

Nimbus, won't you be my friend?!?! I would love to grab your tail...won't be long before you'll be hiding from me!

I just love my new fuzzy PJ's from Aunt Bren and & Aunt Phyllis! Thanks you guys!

Mommy, is it ok if I just sit under here and play??? I have no idea why she likes getting under her jumper...maybe it's the challenge of getting over the metal bars to get in there. Not sure...but whatever keeps her happy!

The weather was so nice over the weekend that we tried to go hiking at Radnor Lake...but it was so busy there was no parking! Crazy! So, we headed to the zoo. Here's Rachel living it up at the zoo...

Mommy, I just love these new PJ's...here's the other pair of new PJ's Rachel got from the aunts...

We also got to get out a couple of times over the past week. Nate & Lauren watched Rachel on Thursday night and we ate at Maggiano's on a gift card that Christy had given us for our birthdays back in August...yep, it took us 3 months to use it! It was delicious! We had the fried zucchini appetizer, garlic shrimp linguine, and salads. We got to sit near the piano man too, which was a nice treat! He's awesome! Wish I could play like that!

Then, Rachel had a play date with Lilli on Monday night and Brent & Rachel watched her so we could go out. We ate at Battered and Fried, a little hole in the wall near their house. It was great! I had the fried grouper with fries of course. Insanely bad for me, but yummy.

Rachel was all pooped out after her play date with Lilli. Here's a pic of her after we got home.

The other great news from the week was that Mama Elaine and Papa got to go home! YAY!!!! They were so excited! We went to visit them at home on Sunday, but forgot the camera unfortunately...we'll have to get pics the next time we go. It was Rachel's first trip to their house ever...Mama Elaine has been in the rehab center ever since she's been born...so needless to say, she was on cloud 9 to be home! She seemed like a completely different person! A really nice lady named Sharon is going to be staying with them during the days, cooking, cleaning, etc. She was super nice when we met her, so I'm hoping this works out great for them!

After months and months of being made fun of for reading so slowly, I have FINALLY finished the book called The Shack (by William Paul Young). In my defense, I have had a little someone called Rachel who has helped delay my reading of this book that I received as a gift last Christmas. My goal (to avoid complete embarrassment) was to finish it by this Christmas...so I think I have succeeded.

I was so deeply touched by the ideas in this book, I wanted to make a post about it on our blog. If you haven't read the book, I hope you'll pick one up. I know it will most probably affect the way you live your life in a huge way. I know my life will not be the same after reading it.

I wanted to put one passage from the book on here that was especially eye opening to me and that changed my perspective on how to prioritize in life.

Mack, talking to God..."Don't you want us to set priorities? You know: God first, then whatever, followed by whatever?"

God's response: "The trouble with living by priorities is that it sees everything as a hierarchy, a pyramid...If you put God at the top, what does that really mean and how much is enough? How much time do you give me before you can go on about the rest of your day, the part that interests you and so much more? You see, Mack, I don't just want a piece of you and a piece of your life. Even if you are able, which you are not, to give me the biggest piece, that is not what I want. I want all of you and all of every part of you and your day. I don't want to be among a list of values; I want to be at the center of everything. When I live in you, then together we can live through everything that happens to you. Rather than a pyramid, I want to be the center of a mobile, where everything in your life - your friends, family, occupation, thoughts, activities - is connected to me but moves with the wind, in and out, back and forth, in an incredible dance of being...and I am the wind"

WOW! How's that for getting our "priorities" in line??? It really changes my outlook. I've always heard that we need to make God our #1 priority in life, followed by family, work, etc....but after reading this, I've come to realize that God doesn't want be a "priority" in our lives, He wants to BE our lives.

I'm attaching a link to the book's website if anyone hasn't heard of it and is interested.

What a beautiful week this has been! Rachel and I have truly been enjoying this awesome fall weather. We've been playing outside and going on stroller rides every single day! This week has been full of excitement as usual, but it was especially entertaining becuase we had play dates with Cade & Laura and Lilli.

Here are some pics of Rachel enjoying the fall leaves this week...

Papa and Mimi came over for dinner on Friday night. I made 15 bean soup...and for dessert we had brownies, ice cream, and homemade hot fudge sauce that was to die for!! Everyone enjoyed playing with Rachel after dinner.

Then we had a play date with Cade & Laura at Nana's on Saturday....along with a hot dog roast. My favorite was the s'mores...mmmm...messy, but yummy goodness!

Here's Adam spoilin' Laura a little...

Such a cutie pie...

Here's Cade rolling the ball...

...and Rachel taking a spin on Laura's ride...

...and Cade & Laura double timing it on the ride...

Rachel also had her first experience with Puffs this week...didn't go too well. I don't quite understand. Everything she sees, she picks up and puts in her mouth...but give her something that she's supposed to put in her mouth and she doesn't want it...crazy!

Puffs get really sticky once they get a little wet...and they stick to just about anything...hands, faces, the high chair...:o)

We went to Brent, Rachel, & Lilli's on Sunday night. They made chili, potatoes, cheesy cornbread...great night of fun, food, and fellowship! Adam, Julia & Meredith also came.

Rachel liked the cool rug in Lilli's room...it was kind of shag, much different from our carpet at home...

Here's Lilli playing away...

It was such a treat for Rachel to play in Lilli's room. She has so much cool stuff from toys to books to tables, etc...what fun!!!

This is what happens when you leave the mail sitting near Rachel's play area while you go into the other room for just a second...good thing we didn't really want to read this sale magazine anyways...it's in a million pieces!